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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018048">I. said hold on</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth'>undeliveredtruth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>elemental snapshots [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Some introspection on Jaehyun's part but it's not that heavy, Talking (and some making out), Yes these are all soft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:14:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,086</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny grounds Jaehyun.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>elemental snapshots [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208231</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>112</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I. said hold on</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jaehyun steps past the threshold of their dorm with the poignant sentiment that he doesn’t want to be here.</p><p>As always, the feeling is present in the spaces between his ribs, a seeming gap in his chest. The dorm’s light is too much—too blinding. Why aren’t the lights off?</p><p>Not that he hates the dorm. No, his room is quite cozy, and Jungwoo is a great roommate. Jaehyun thinks he has quite some things to learn from Jungwoo about keeping things and his life together, so he tries his best to learn.</p><p>It’s not about Jungwoo nor his room, for that matter. It’s just that…</p><p>Sometimes, Jaehyun wants to escape.</p><p>It’s in days like that he puts on an LP and lays on his bed, eyes closed, imagining thousands of lives that are different than this one. Days (nights) when he sticks his AirPods in his ears, shrugs on a jacket, a mask, and a low bucket hat and wanders streets he couldn’t even think of walking around during the day. The stream near their dorm is fairly empty past 2 AM, a dark, liminal space that gives the thoughts in Jaehyun’s brain space to extend beyond their constraints.</p><p>Sometimes, though, Jaehyun doesn’t want to think.</p><p>On days like those, he takes the elevator five floors down.</p><p>
  <em>Is Hyuck in your room?</em>
</p><p>No response. Jaehyun half didn’t expect one. He’s pretty sure Donghyuck and Mark are out with the Dreamies today, so the possibility isn’t low for Donghyuck not to be there.</p><p>He lets himself in easily with the code on the keypad; for some reason, the one on the 5th floor sounds different when it opens, one simple sound compared to the three on theirs.</p><p>It always reminds Jaehyun he’s somewhere he technically shouldn’t be. A truly sobering affair, the walk to Johnny’s room.</p><p>Yet, recently, he finds he cares less and less.</p><p>A knock on the door reveals a low voice from the inside. “Yeah?”</p><p>“It’s me,” Jaehyun announces, twisting the handle.</p><p>Johnny greets him with his headphones in his hand, the game paused on the screen. Once upon a time, he knew what Johnny was playing; not anymore. He’s been too busy to come hang out recently, too taken by photoshoots and attempting to film another solo cover.</p><p>Well, he’s covered it already, but ultimately decided to not publish it. Yet. SM wasn’t happy, but, well…</p><p>“I just gotta…” Johnny nods towards his computer.</p><p>“No, don’t worry. I’ll just chill,” Jaehyun flops down on Johnny’s bed, disturbing the perfectly-made sheets. He scrolls through Instagram not quite mindlessly, careful of what he likes because he knows one wrong press on the screen can cause a scandal greater than something so simple should.</p><p>Then, he switches to his other account with a following count of a wonderful zero and checks out the things he can’t on his normal account—the clubs he follows, some of his old friends, some of the celebrities he can’t quite look at from his official account. He doesn’t like anything on this one, just explores.</p><p>He should go to that party tonight, maybe. He hasn’t been too good at keeping up with his friends lately, and maybe a party is just what he needs.</p><p>“You good?”</p><p>Johnny’s voice is unexpected; despite himself, it makes Jaehyun startle, quickly throwing his eyes up. There’s something to how on the edge he’s feeling, maybe.</p><p>
  <em>Is he okay?</em>
</p><p>“Mmm. Could be better.”</p><p>“What’s up?” By the looks of the dark screen, Johnny’s finished his game and turned off his computer. He turns on his gaming chair instead, putting up his feet on the corner of his bed, next to Jaehyun’s own. Jaehyun puts his phone down.</p><p>“Just feeling weird, I don’t know.”</p><p>“Anything happen today?”</p><p>“Sorta. The company chewed me out for not wanting to post my cover.”</p><p>“What’s it of?” Johnny asks with a raised eyebrow. Reminds Jaehyun of when he asked sort of the same thing on a live while in a car some year and a half or so ago. <em>Will you let me listen to it, then?</em></p><p>Back then, Jaehyun didn’t show it to Johnny because he didn’t want to admit to himself the vague shape in his mind whenever he pranced around the streets of Paris and London, singing of love and warmth and days unending, started to be significantly more person-shaped. A certain person-shaped.</p><p>
  <em>I like me better when I’m with you.</em>
</p><p>“It’s a Coldplay song.”</p><p>Jaehyun likes himself better when he’s with Johnny. He likes Johnny, of course, but mostly because... Johnny was everything Jaehyun ever wanted to be. Confident, kind, an unmatched pillar of their group with a presence that went beyond physical. Jaehyun loves, and he loves everyone in the group, yes, but he wasn’t Johnny.</p><p>But then Johnny and he got closer—and Jaehyun began to stop striving for things that aren’t him and started trying to be better as himself.</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“I mean…”</p><p>“Can I hear it?”</p><p>Jaehyun breathes out, pulling up the recording from his phone. The room is silent when he presses play.</p><p>
  <em>Look at the stars </em>
</p><p><em>“Fuck,”</em> Johnny says.</p><p>Simple, low. Yet, his eyes looking at Jaehyun bear the depth of a million other words unable to be spoken.</p><p>The last notes of the instrumental fade away and Jaehyun knows this won’t be released. After all, the only person that needed to hear it just did.</p><p>“Damn.”</p><p>“Did you like it?”</p><p>“Can you send it to me?” Johnny asks, eyebrows raised. “I don’t think I’m going to ever be able to live a day from now on without hearing this.”</p><p>Jaehyun chuckles. But he sends the voice recording to Johnny anyway, closing their chat afterward and placing his phone down on the mattress. “I’ll send you a better one when SM sends it to me. If.”</p><p>“No, it’s okay. I like the raw sound of it.”</p><p>The silence falls over them as Jaehyun busies himself with the comforter, draping it over himself. Johnny’s room is cold, but it’s clean, and it smells of a musky, dark candle lit on a shelf.</p><p>“That should probably not be there.”</p><p>“Oh shit, yeah,” Johnny picks up the candle and places it on the corner of his desk instead. “Thank you for saving our dorm.”</p><p>“No problem.”</p><p>Johnny sits back down, placing his feet back on the bed, closer to Jaehyun’s legs this time. “What’s with you?”</p><p>As if prompted by Johnny’s words, Jaehyun’s lips move out of their own accord. <em>“Shit</em> man, I don’t know.”</p><p>“Are you feeling like…”</p><p>“No, not like that. I’m okay. It’s just… I don’t know, something feels weird. I just wanna… I just wanna do something. Go somewhere, but I feel like there’s nowhere to go to, so I’m paralyzed by that notion and end up just never wanting to leave instead. It’s dumb, just… Don’t wanna get out of bed. But I do. Cause I gotta.”</p><p>Words he doesn’t speak much aloud. Not him. Not Jaehyun.</p><p>Not the Jaehyun he knows, at least.</p><p>“I’m sorry we missed our vacation.”</p><p>“Yeah, Johnny, apologize that our company’s shit,” Jaehyun huffs. “It’s fine. Didn’t expect to go anyway.”</p><p>“You’re snappy today,” Johnny chuckles, lightly hitting Jaehyun's calf with his foot, heavy gaze on Jaehyun.</p><p>Maybe he can tell Jaehyun’s thing isn’t that serious. Otherwise, Johnny would never act like this.</p><p>Otherwise, Johnny would use those deep eyes that Jaehyun is unguarded to and draw out everything Jaehyun can’t form in words by himself. But the fact that Jaehyun poured it out maybe tells Johnny it’s not one of those nights. Jaehyun isn’t here to talk.</p><p>It’s one of the others. One of those where he makes bad decisions.</p><p>“Was thinking of going out tonight,” Jaehyun tries to relax. Johnny’s comforter is warm, comfortable. Way too cozy for Jaehyun to think of getting up.</p><p>“It’s already late.”</p><p>“I know. But I still have time. Think some of my friends are 'hanging out' in Apgujeong.”</p><p>“Are you sure it’s the smartest thing to do?” <em>Considering our group’s sorta in the middle of a scandal </em>goes unsaid.</p><p>“Mmm.”</p><p>“I ain’t gonna stop you if you wanna go. Just saying.”</p><p>Jaehyun hums. Johnny wouldn’t. Johnny would tell him to go if Jaehyun thinks it’s the right to do. But Jaehyun thinks himself of the possibility of getting caught, of the consequences, of the discussion, the further scandal...</p><p>“Do you think what Doyoung-hyung did is that awful?”</p><p>“I think he was just standing up for himself. It’s fine, it’ll blow over. Fans seem to know he wasn’t in the wrong.”</p><p>It shocked them all when the recording came out of Doyoung snapping at a staff member who later got fired. What shocked them even more though was how Doyoung refused to tell anyone but the company what the whole thing was about.</p><p>“Whether Taeyong will kill him… now <em>that’s</em> debatable.”</p><p>Including Taeyong.</p><p>“He’ll forgive him. He knows him better than anyone.”</p><p>“Mhm… true.”</p><p>Johnny smiles.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Nothing.” But he continues smiling, so Jaehyun hits him too. Lightly.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Nothing, really. Aren’t you gonna go out?”</p><p>Jaehyun can interpret that smile. That’s <em>the</em> smile.</p><p>“Depends. Will you make it worth it for me to stay?” Jaehyun finds himself smiling in return, the pressure in his chest dispelling into dust.</p><p>“Hmm. I can try.”</p><p>There’s a weight to everything Johnny does that has an effect on Jaehyun he hasn’t yet begun to take apart. When he gets up from his chair and takes the two steps to hit the side of the bed, there’s something in his movements, in the too-heavy padding of his feet on the floor and the paced, measured way he moves that pulls him to Jaehyun like gravity. That gives him weight. When he kneels and the bed dips and his weight settles on Jaehyun’s thighs to pin him to the bed, that weight is comfort for Jaehyun.</p><p>Jaehyun isn’t with Johnny because things are light. Jaehyun is with Johnny because things are <em>heavy.</em></p><p>Johnny is heavy in the assuredness of his touches, in the way he grips Jaehyun’s hand with one of his and places the other on his cheek. His eyes are heavy, looking into his with so much depth and the tension is thick between them as Johnny leans down, placing his weight on Jaehyun’s chest for their lips to connect.</p><p>Johnny’s kisses are heavy. Johnny’s tongue in his mouth and the bite to Jaehyun’s bottom lip is hot and intense while not hinting at much.</p><p>“Don’t really wanna fuck,” Jaehyun whispers crudely in the wet, heated breaths shared between their lips, his hands fisted tight in the back of Johnny’s sweater.</p><p>“More than fine by me,” Johnny responds, and dives back in to kiss Jaehyun with the same intensity.</p><p><em>Things that are light fly away too easily, </em>Jaehyun thinks.</p><p>Johnny’s hips and his hands now pressed to both sides of his body give him zero space to move. But Jaehyun likes it like that—because Jaehyun is heavy too, and no one else besides Johnny can hold him down like this when he’s not a good person and has thoughts he doesn’t want to give a voice to. No one else but Johnny has the force and the power to make those underlying, not-yet-shaped pieces of unconsciousness disappear just like this, to shove away whatever gap there is and make his home there instead, present and grounding.</p><p>Jaehyun imagines a tiny Johnny in his chest, swiping away at cobwebs with a broom in his hand and making room for light in places that haven’t seen it for a long time, and he chuckles into the kiss.</p><p>Johnny’s smile shapes alongside his. And even when everything is easy and carefree, their kisses are still heavy—hot, wet, intense—and yet with still no pressure to move things along because things can be heavy and yet be the easiest thing to hold. Jaehyun kisses him until his lips are burning and his thighs are aching and his back is hurting from where it’s arched up to bring Johnny closer, and only when he feels like he could breathe without it does he pull away.</p><p>Johnny’s breaths are heavy on his temple, Jaehyun’s lips heavy on his jaw.</p><p>Jaehyun won’t go out.</p><p>“Wanna go hang out with Doyoung-hyung?” His own voice is raw warping around the syllables.</p><p>“Hell yeah, let’s go bother Doyoungie.”</p><p>Jaehyun will stay for another day—drawn into Johnny’s gravity with his feet firmly planted on the ground.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Kudos and thoughts are very much appreciated. ♡ You can find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/bbysvts">twt</a> and <a href="https://curiouscat.me/bbysvts">cc</a> too!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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